Members of Special Libraries Association Pittsburgh Student Group (SLAPSG) have been hard at work this semester collecting medical textbooks to send to U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The LIS students were first made aware of the efforts when they read the New York Times article about OML (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/health/31library.html) in Dr. Ellen Detlefsen’s Health Sciences Resources and Services course during the fall semester. Surprised to see that the University of Pittsburgh was not a participating institution, SLAPSG president Amy Yonick decided to start OML @ Pitt after positive feedback from other student members. The outreach project has also generated a couple new members for SLAPSG. The faculty advisor for OML @ Pitt is Ellen Detlefsen.
So far the LIS students have collected over 70 textbooks; they plan on having the first shipment sent by April 8. They have reached out to various schools at the University of Pittsburgh, including the School of Medicine and the School of Nursing. Some SLAPSG members handed out flyers at a PalPITTations concert, an a cappella group at the university consisting of medical students. Yonick designed a strategic marketing plan for OML@Pitt for Dr. Sue Alman’s Marketing and Public Relations for Libraries course.
SLAPSG will continue to ship books as they are received through the summer. Yonick hopes that incoming LIS students and SLAPSG members will continue to work on the project after she and the other members graduate this summer.
More information about OML @ Pitt
